Doom 3 on the Original Xbox is an incredible port. Here is why.

[@ModernVintageGamer]

Correction: Co-op mode was only 2 player and not 4 player (which is supported in deathmatch)

[@odiedodieuk]

I knew that didn’t sound right.

[@BogdanZelinschi]

Ty i love vids like this 1

[@LazyJesse]

@Tonysopranoyafinook sarcasm?

[@JustinLesamiz]

@Tonysopranoyafinook What a moronic conclusion to come to about an otherwise very thorough video.

[@nonstopmaximum2141]

Is screen tearing normal on the OG Xbox or is this a problem with recording?

[@rickmus2]

The part of the story you are missing VV needed the assistance of Raven Software to do map adjustments (geometry reduction, lighting reduction, splitting) as well as texture resolution/replacement and model triangle count reduction. It took about 15 of us at raven around 6-12 weeks (too long ago) to work on this while being pulled off of our project, Quake IV. I was one of the people leading this group, though my role was more coordination and communication, as I was the lead programmer on Quake IV and not an artist/mapper.

[@mindrover777]

So was it just primarily reducing the polygon count for the entire game assets? Did you guys use other software like maya and max as well?

[@wladdragwlya]

Did no one got alarmed by the retarded gameplay mechanics? The dead AI, the cheap melting corpses? Or general concept wise, the extremely incompetent weapon sounds and the half arse design? Not even in the department of technology was it good, having Carmack wrongly predicting in 2004 that shadow volumes will trump over shadow buffers and thus insisting on those bulky stencil shadows -basically until they made Rage, when most games were using shadow mapping technology. Here he also praised megatexture and bragged how they will make a 1 TB megatexture file for ultra high quality and it became another bs never fulfilled. In the end people criticizes megatexture for the low quality of textures overall and Doom Eternal dropped it in the end for stream textures.

[@princepeachfuzz]

thank you for your amazing work

[@casedistorted]

Hey hey Raven Software! They are here in my hometown of Madison, WI still (ID Software used to be here too in the 90's when I lived here as a kid, making Wolfenstein 3D, but then they moved to Texas, while Raven Software stayed here in Middleton, WI right next door). I have been in their offices a few times, and even alpha tested Wolfenstein 2009 way back in the day. The last time I have been in the Raven Software office was when The Force Awakens came out, so quite a while ago. I still love Raven games, I always wanted to work there but never knew programming or anything useful, so I didn't bother getting into the gaming business. Sucks because that is what I wanted to do since I was a little kid in the 80's and 90's.

[@petercampi2840]

Man, the team at Raven sure have been one of the best id Tech users since the pre-Radiant Doom days. I wonder if Raven will get to touch id Tech 7 in the future (I sure hope so anyway).

[@cameronadeyemi8017]

I won't lie, my favorite part about Doom 3 on Xbox was the quick save button. What a blessing that was.

[@ponivi]

@damsen978pc version has quicksave. Console ports of games, especially back then, never had a bound quicksave button

[@ponivi]

@damsen978 no, he was talking about how the quicksave button was an extremely helpful quality of life on the xbox

[@plasmaoctopus1728]

@damsen978 Well, Halo's checkpoints were frequent enough for the most part to mitigate frustration. But yeah I can remember a fair amount of games not having options to save whenever in addition to not having frequent checkpoints.

[@derrickwierzbicki742]

It also let you map what gun you wanted to be mapped to the four D-Pad directions for customized quickslots as well as letting you hold down Left Trigger to run but also speed up your aiming sensitivity. All these combined with the coop made it such an awesome port.

[@WackoMcGoose]

Until you accidentally tap the quicksave button right as a monster is about to eat your face. Death-loops ahoy!

[@madkvideo]

I love when talented programmers go crazy and optimize the hell out of games. Seems like it almost is a forgotten art nowadays.

[@DCxDemo]

games are too overweight now and for a one man job your smartphone is more than enough these days. also in-house engine is a dying breed, everybody just uses industry solutions that work just good enough, i.e. unity and unreal.

[@zwenkwiel816]

Just get a 4090 bro XD

[@JudeTheYoutubePoopersubscribe]

They just rely on you having good enough hardware to brute force past any performance problems.

[@Matt.Willoughby]

There's no need nowadays

[@ajflink]

Now and days programmers care WAY TOO much about readability when it comes coding that you are berated for even suggesting optimization besides the obvious such as eliminating redundancy. Comments in coding exist for a reason. Use them! It seems ever since transitioning from 32-bit to 64-bit as the standard that optimization is less prioritized.

[@redgoesfasterdotcom]

I love these stories about how really smart coding makes the impossible possible. It's a nice counter balance to the countless lazy ports that plague the gaming industry.

[@monsterhunter445]

In fairness to today developers. We are under paid and also have way more platforms more architectures. Games are way more complex than they ever have been. To expect to run well in all platforms with consistency.

[@benperkins2929]

@@ganjaman59650 based

[@puppy.shorts]

​@@monsterhunter445Underpaid, good joke 😂

[@NegitoroIsBestShip]

Notice how most of these stories are old…hardly get legends like these anymore.

[@petrkubena]

There are no lazy ports. There are just ports that were not funded enough. Any programmer will gladly optimize the code to the last bit, but any product manager that's worth anything will stop him at some point that's good enough (or fits the budget).

[@rabbitenjoyer6320]

This port blew me away back in 2005. Spent many late nights playing co-op via Xlink Kai. Thanks for the rundown on how Vicarious Visions achieved it!

[@ModernVintageGamer]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@legendsflashback]

@@ModernVintageGamer wasn't resurrections better lightening and better game because people complained about doom 3?

[@jtjones4727]

I have great memories of playing this on my Xbox back in the day. I would come home after a long shift delivering pizza. I'd puff a fatty and turn the lights down, turn up the surround sound, grab that gigantic Duke controller, and play this on the big screen TV.

[@legendsflashback]

@@jtjones4727 isn't doom 3 ressurection better?

[@realitycheck2669]

@@legendsflashback No

[@QuestionBlockGaming]

Doom 3 and the HL2 ports proved to me that the OG Xbox was something crazy- literally ahead of its time. Thanks for taking a look at this- and also hoping you'll take a deep dive on the HL2 port too!

[@jeremyscout3464]

HL2 on og Xbox is the only version I've played. Got it back during Christmas of 05. There are some really rough texture issues and slowdown but it is overall completely playable and extremely impressive for the hardware.

[@mortenpotzdidler2790]

NV2a was very much ahead of its time: it's a three-gen hybrid of nVidia tech that, wrongly, was called a simple "GeForce 3" at the time. In truth, it's a mix of NV20 (GeForce 3), NV25 (GeForce 4) and even NV30; what's notable about this is that NV20 was the flagship 2002 card while NV30 was the flagship for 2003. Thus, important pieces of technology inside the Xbox predated elements of nVidia's flagship PC technology by years. In truth, the Xbox's GPU is probably closest to the GeForce 4, with the understanding that it has some very important tech from NV30 inside of it. This is why J Allard called the NV2a in Xbox the "NV27.5". As far as consoles, it was a very predictive device in many, many areas, and outpaced the PS2 to a near-genararional degree on perf; thus it was the first console with a hard drive -- as-standard -- the first console with a GPU dedicated to programmable shader tech, the first console with a fully-SIMD x86/64 CPU, and the first console built fully for the high-speed internet era.

[@icespeaker81]

@@jeremyscout3464 Honestly, having played both ports, I feel like the HL2 is very shoddy compared to DOOM III. Bad frame rate, awkward controls, etc.

[@jeremyscout3464]

@@icespeaker81 It's been a very long time since I've played either but back when I did, Xbox was the only way I would've been able to. I'm sure if I went back now I'd realise how rough it is.

[@archivey-h8e]

HL2's framerate and texture quality on Xbox leaves a lot to be desired. It's really not a good port like Doom 3 is.

[@fu102]

I would love one on Chronicles of Riddick. That was a technical masterpiece, and predated Doom 3.

[@teacherfromthejungles6671]

the game was developed originally for OG XBOX, not ported from PC

[@VergilHiltsLT]

@@teacherfromthejungles6671 Yup, but it got huge texture improvements on PC, also soft-shadows on supported cards (Shader Model 3.0).

[@DeadPixel1105]

@@VergilHiltsLT The PC port is an absolutely awful port though. Even on high end systems, the framerate and frametimes are abysmal. It sucks, because Escape From Butcher Bay is a legitimate masterpiece. I had so much fun with that game on OG XBox. I would love to play it again on PC. I did try to, about 3 years ago. But after the seeing the awful performance in the introduction sequence alone, I was like: "I am NOT playing through the entire game like this." It would have felt like a legit DOWNGRADE from the Xbox version. I wish the game would get a modern remaster/rerelease. That would be great.

[@VergilHiltsLT]

@@DeadPixel1105 I never had such problems on my PC. And the textures alone look miles better than what Xbox had to offer, which is understandable. They're severely compressed on Xbox.

[@drekiskrek5008]

​@@DeadPixel1105Lmao what are you talking about Riddick runs fantastic on even midrange hardware

[@sikevillain]

Doom 3 was my actual first Doom game i played on the OG Xbox.. the haunting atmosphere and amazing graphics at that time really scared and impressed the hell outta me..

[@ryancastley]

Same.🎉

[@AgsmaJustAgsma]

3:34 The use of automatic doors here is a simple yet effective method of optimization, almost like a rudimentary culling technique that lets the game render an entire level in smaller chunks without the console chugging along, on top of adding to the game's claustrophobic atmosphere.

[@Hamdad]

Metroid Prime also does this IIRC

[@yarpen26]

I remember reading an article about ten years back that talked about the various optimization techniques, such as hallways composed of several pointless straight angles, but what blew my mind in particular was how the "you press the button on this side and I'll do the same here" type puzzles are 90% of the time just a clever trick to force your companions into not putting too much distance between themselves and you.

[@Beaut_Beau]

I remember seeing Doom 3 (barely) running on my under powered PC back in the day and just being awestruck by how incredible it looked, it seemed almost impossible that i was watching it running right in front of me on my own computer in real time!

[@aarongreenfield9038]

Don't feel too bad, from what I've heard from watching lots of behind the scenes documentaries, even as they were Developing the game, the developers themselves didn't have a computer that would max it out, or even run it a steady 15~20 frames per second. It wasn't till about a decade later until computers began to approach maxing it at solid frame rates.

[@JustinLesamiz]

@@aarongreenfield9038 Nah, it was 2-3 years later. But, back then, change happened a lot more quickly. It DID take the rest of the industry more than a decade to catch up to it from a technological standpoint though.

[@soylentgreenb]

I was struck by how awful it looked. The lighting is extremely unrealistic with harsh stencil shadows that compare unfavorably to basic shitty sector lighting from doom 2. It felt years behind the soft, pre-rendered radiosity lighting of original Quake. A result of their technical choices was that there were at most 3 enemies at a time, ever; unlike doom 2 which would chuck enemies at you like candy, sometimes by the dozen. A result was that they had to take the amazing Doom series and make a poor survival horror game out of it. The lighting actually looks better if you straight up disable shadows.

[@cosettapessa6417]

@@soylentgreenbthe contrarian has arrived 😂

[@soylentgreenb]

@@aarongreenfield9038 You're misremembering things. It's OK, I often do that too; things happened so obscenely quickly back then compared to now. The geforce 3's they used during development ran about as well as you said, but those were old obsolete crap when the game was released in late 2004. In 2004 the 6800 ultra was already out. It had 4 times as many pixel pipes as the geforce 3(well, pixel shaders, and the fixed function register combiners would have been handled as shaders in the graphics driver). It was clocked more than twice as fast as the geforce 3. It had almost 5 times the memory bandwidth. There's a lot you can do with ~8 times the performance; you can basically double the x and y resolution (4 times as many pixels) and still double the framerate. Doom 3 ran very well on a 6800-card. Ultra textures were just stupid and nobody used them; they were essentially just uncompressed textures which barely looked better and required an obscene amount of memory for no purpose. Doom 3 ran fine on a better 5700 or above card or a 9500 or above card on team red. 10 years after doom 3 the 980 and r9 290 was already out. The r9 290 has 640 times as many shaders as the geforce 3, clocked almost 5 times as fast and it had 50 times the memory bandwidth. Doom 3 had long since become a joke to run on the worst potato integrated trash you could find.

[@supersnow17]

I remember playing this over and over and over, being completely blown away by how good it looked. I even had the silver, tin box collectors edition or whatever it was. I really wish I still had it.

[@joes.3083]

Dude, I had the special edition also! That tin box was great, even had the documentary of ID software on it.

[@R3AL-AIM]

My first experience with Doom 3 was actually the Xbox. I had the steel book version. It was before I got my 360 and our PC was an P4 VAIO my dad had gotten a couple years prior. Could handle 90's titles fine and even the GTA Trilogy, but not sure it've been able to play this.

[@AbdelkaderSokkah]

Yeah. it wasn't long until the xbox one/windows 10 port was released.

[@R3AL-AIM]

@@jank85 what are you going on about? I'm just sharing my experience with the title at hand. I was young and now I'm a man with his own family.... Seems like a troll response. I actually enjoyed the HL2 port a bit more than this game, but we weren't talking about that. So, idk what you are talking about with corporate shilling 🙃

[@R3AL-AIM]

@@jank85 also, I hate Reddit and if I'm going to shill for any old console or games, it would be anything with the PS2 that I played the most of as a child. Chill homie lol

[@LastTorgoInParis]

yup i had the steelbook too! i remember it had Doom 1 and 2 on it. Nothing special tech wise but i still liked playing the classics on my console for once

[@newtypepunk9967]

I love Doom 3. It always blows my mind that it even came out on the OG Xbox, truly an amazing port to pull off, Doom 3 and Riddick have to be in the top tier list of how did they even manage to pull that off, great video.

[@bradwart]

Half-Life 2 as well but yes, all amazing ports.

[@toxicavenger6172]

I actually bought an Xbox to get this game whenever it came out. The stage where you run through the subway tunnels, in the dark, holding the flashlight to see but having to switch weapons to fight imps was so crazy. Often times you could only see from your weapon flashes making it so much more terrifying.

[@lmcgregoruk]

That was one thing I liked about the NON BFG edition of Doom 3, Flashlight OR Weapon, not both. Plus BFG edition made the game easier and gave more ammo. I mean you didn't NEED the flashlight to see enemies, just a source of light, whether from an enemy projectile, your flashlight, or any other lighting available.

[@toxicavenger6172]

@@lmcgregoruk yeah they changed it because a lot of people hated the flashlight mechanic and the difficulty dealing with low ammo pools too. Those two mechanics added a sense of anxiety to the game that's so unique to doom 3. BFG edition essentially nerfs the whole experience.

[@lmcgregoruk]

@@toxicavenger6172 I mean I could understand people coming from Doom 1 + 2, even Quake, wanting more of the same fast paced ACTION game/shooter, and instead getting a slower more survival horror type game. I mean the only thing it had in common with the older dooms was the plot(such as it was), get sent to mars, find out people were messing with teleporters, fight demons undead on mars/in hell.

[@toxicavenger6172]

@@lmcgregoruk I get what you mean but even in the BFG edition that would be hard to replicate due to the narrow corridors and small rooms in the map design. Aside from that most people didn't have a powerful enough PC to get a high frame rate in the game to get a fast paced experience. A slower survival horror theme fits well.

[@HeyBlondieGamer]

A great dive into the wizardry required for tough ports. Optimizations like this are always fascinating: learning how and what the team prioritized, and where and how concessions were made. Doom 3 was incredible at the time and deserved that care and attention.

[@andresbravo2003]

Even for the Hype of Doom 3, this port really deserves it.

[@italodirenzo5876]

Man, I'm so grateful for these deep dives. I was (and still am) super interested in this kind of work back when I was first learning programming in college. But back then, there wasn't much available on the internet for learning how these kinds of engineering jobs were done. It's so cool that you were able to talk to Brian about what his experiences were on this port and share that knowledge with the rest of us. Thanks for everything you do, MVG!

[@oaktreep1987]

This takes me back to one of my personal favorite times in PC gaming. At the time i just had a brand new PC and with games like Doom 3, Half Life 2, Far Cry, Fear, it was so great to have a gaming PC. Playing Doom 3 on a big CRT monitor and 5.1 Creative sound blaster sound card was an amazing and terrifying experience!

[@mauirixxx]

I never finished Doom 3 on the pc because the audio freaked me out and messed with me that bad. I remember the tape/flashlight mod making the game easier too. I should revisit this and finish it …

[@jacquesdebruin796]

Same here, I had a pretty high end pc at the time. I could play most games at max settings. And the thing I really miss about that time is pc hardware was way way cheaper. And as for gaming it was just a magical time. Games like NFSU 2 , half life 2 and Gta San Andreas are some of my all time favorites. Played doom 3 with headphones, was crazy scary experience.

[@oaktreep1987]

@@jacquesdebruin796 Nice! i played also GTA SA and NFSU2 a lot and great point about pc hardware being cheaper. BTW de bruin? Also Dutch/ Nederlander haha?

[@jacquesdebruin796]

@@oaktreep1987 South African but great great grandfather or someone was probably Dutch.😀

[@PalaceMidasMusic]

I first played it on Xbox, and the CRT, lower resolution and of course the flash light made the experience even more scary. I played the BFG port a while ago on modern hardware and I just do not get immersed at all. It's like a different game. The only game that makes me feel like Doom 3 on Xbox did is Dead Space 1.

[@MatticusFinch1820]

The fact that competent ports of Half Life 2 and Doom 3 were even possible on the OG Xbox just shows how far ahead of the game that console was and how talented the devs were. amazing.

[@Charlie-eq3dj]

That's the thing. The console was half a generation ahead of the Dreamcast, PS2 and GameCube. Microsoft forced themselves into the market with brute force and were willing to take a loss with every console to come out on top. It worked in that generation because it forced Sega out of the hardware business even though they were losing millions.

[@pukovnikklefeld]

A full 2001-ish gaming PC for $300 was insane. And the modding community turned it into a Swiss army knife, making it useful even today. I'd prefer it over PS2 were it not for the clunky controller and limited game library.

[@jedewitz]

loving your review content like this. Would really enjoy to see more, especially given your experience on the Xbox itself!

[@ModernVintageGamer]

More to come!

[@BillLambert]

Nostalgia is such a thorn in my side... I miss those days of creatively stretching hardware limitations. I think I had the most fun programming back when computers were so weak, because the limits highlighted the flaws in your project and you could really feel the improvements as you optimized your code and assets. Fast-forward to today and it feels like we're going backwards, taking these obscenely fast modern PCs and running garbage Javascript on them because it's "easy".

[@Pickleslip]

I’ve always regarded the gamemakers from the 2000s as wizards… How in the hell were they able to come up with such feats of technical prowess is beyond me… 🎩

[@ganjaman59650]

You should check the history behind the making of roller coaster tycoon, absolute genius.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

They learned how to construct 3D rendering engines from scratch. Most modern game developers don't know how to do that - they just use existing engines. Remember when FB added '3D' image upload that was a regular image along with a depth map? Unity groups were filled with tons of conversations about how to generate such a map from a scene, crazy elaborate techniques to approximate this thing they had never seen. None of them knew that the Z/depth buffer was a fundamental part of the pipeline - they didn't know they used it every day. When you don't learn from scratch, you massively diminish your ability to innovate and you sacrifice a lot of performance. There's a reason Doom Eternal wipes the floor with anything else - because it was programmed to be exactly what it was - not made from high-level, generic constructs that put flexibility and ease-of-use before performance.

[@6581punk]

Simple, they were expected to build an engine to run the game. With Unity, Unreal Engine etc there's less of a need. There are some devs who have produced their own but it's a dying art.

[@silverywingsagain]

There are still code wizards out there. You'll find a number of them work for Nintendo through Monolithsoft. Hardware restrictions breed ingenuity.

[@ganjaman59650]

@@6581punk you are right and i hate it.

[@themegaman91965]

This has been my go-to for horror but not cryptic since 2005! I remember seeing the alpha in '03, and being filled with excitement, playing it in a Fry's the following year, renting it in '05, and getting the game for my Celeron build that year, and now if I need something scary when I need to cope, with lights off this is it! Such a masterpiece! The original Doom was the first game I ever played, and I can safely say that Doom 3 has the same replay value for different reasons!

[@HyrulianTV]

Vicarious Visions have done such incredible work in the gaming industry. Most recently, I am very greatful for the work they put in remastering some older games. The Crash Bandicoot N Sane trilogy was excellent, but for me, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 is their modern masterpiece. They perfectly nailed what Pro Skater is all about and they made a faithful modernized version of the two games with all of the quality of life bells and whistles the THPS fan base could have wanted. They where even smart enough to base the skate handeling off of Tony Hawks Underground 2 which most fans of the series agree is the best in the series. I will never forgive Activision for pulling Vicarious Visions off the remasters and dooming them to work on sports games. I appreciate them so much for providing such a faithful and insightful remaster of one of my favorite series of all time.

[@allancandaza]

Are you lost or what? Blizzard owned vicarous vision merger with blizzard in-house development team to work on diablo 4 duh?!

[@DCxDemo]

@@allancandaza so you expect bizzard to make some 90s remakes for activision or what? bizzard always was its own thing, milking warcraft, blatantly stolen from a certain another war related hammer thingy.

[@Draw2quit]

To make you a walking armoury and still be scary was really impressive. I played this on Xbox and loved it

[@winlover37]

Excellent video as always MVG! I only just played doom 3 a few years ago, and I did it on my OG Xbox. I absolutely loved it, I love miracle ports.

[@wusstunes]

It's always vicarious visions, isn't it. As a Wii/DS player I always really appreciated their work and it's wild how wide their reach was in the 2000s.

[@kenrickkahn]

As a Wii player I admire the talents of those guys..

[@Swisshost]

Have so many game boy games from them.

[@mechanicalmonk2020]

Looks like Nixxies is their modern day coming.

[@DrezKill]

They also did an awesome job with the Crash Bandicoot remakes in the N. Sane trilogy!

[@cheesychester]

Vicarious Visions has always done wonders. Hardware limitations are not an issue to them.

[@freddiejohnson6137]

One thing I loved about the original Xbox was it was getting ports of PC games that usually required much more expensive hardware to run at the time and those exclusives definitely made it stand out a bit for me. Although that generation is the first one I did own all three as I found each one had exclusives that made them worth owning.

[@VertexTuner]

Something I have to note myself about the 'dirty disc' error, when the game first came out, myself and 2 friends decided to marathon the game from start to finish in co-op, so we hefted two Xbox's, two TV and two copies of the game, playing while handing off a controller when someone died. We managed to finish the entire game in one sitting with only one issue appearing. The game didn't end correctly, on one screen we saw the vortex of fire and magma, on the other just a black void and the game stayed on that camera shot on both screens. We knew it was over and just chalked it up to something weird about the two copies of the game we were using. A friend had brought the standard UK release, I had brought the Australian release. They worked together throughout the game, but we never once had the 'dirty disc' error. I have seen this error when playing the game by myself in very long sittings, but I never knew the context of the error itself until this video and I'm now wondering if it was the cause of the odd ending screen I saw that day.

[@Eyetrauma]

So cool that you could get insider knowledge about the VV port! I remember playing this game along with my ex’s family one Christmas, everyone huddled around the XBox. Gave a really different experience from playing it myself on the PC. That bit about the CPU having to handle collision and blood decals is really interesting. As you’d said, I doubt I’d ever have noticed.

[@casedistorted]

Man, my friend in my college years always had the craziest most expensive gaming PC's at the time. He had a sweet sweet CRT gaming monitor, and a gaming PC that would have been the equivalent of a 4090 today. I remember being so jealous because I could not run any games (just like MVG shows on his PC at 1:34), but my friend Cody had this freaking monster that could run Doom 3 at its maximum resolution possible on that monitor, and it had such great framerates, it just looked so silky smooth with max graphics. I was so hooked, it was an experience I remember to this day. He let me sit down in the dark of his room, blinds closed, amazing speakers, and he turned the lights off and stepped out of the room while he went to work for 8 hours. After his shift he came home and I was STILL playing Doom 3. I beat the entire game in one sitting because it blew my mind so much. There are not many games in history where the game could keep my attention and get me to play it from start to finish. Doom 3 on PC and Metal Gear Solid 2 on PS2 were two games I remember sitting down and beating both in essentially one sitting. Doom 3 I didn't stop until I beat it, MGS2 I rented at another friends house and he had a CRT in his room up at an angle above us on a dresser from his bed. I laid down on his bed and played MGS2 nonstop for 2 days straight, basically the entire weekend, until I beat the game. I remember him leaving and coming back and leaving and coming back, he couldn't believe I was still playing the game. I don't remember what kind of god like machine my friend had so I could play Doom 3 in all its glory, but I will never forget it. He also showed me Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 1 and that was the game where I knew I needed a gaming PC for myself. Btw, Doom 3 on the OG Xbox was one of my fav Xbox games. I played it on the Xbox 360 and the game is amazing since it includes coop mode (super fun), AND easy ways to play Doom 1 and 2 on console. I really loved this game, I bought it at a local Pre-Played for cheap and never regretted it. Wish I still had it though.

[@brkbtjunkie]

This game looked amazeballs on pc, I remember thinking how could textures look so good! I absolutely love these technical breakdown of how games ran on specific hardware.

[@AlexBell1991]

Doom 3 on OG Xbox was incredible for me. I remember trying to run the demo on my PC and I couldn't even hit double digit frame rate. Instantly picked up a copy when I learnt it was released for the Xbox.

[@fed4511]

I remember playing the demo on Xbox back then and being mindblown by the lighting. Scared TF out of me as a kid lol

[@green929392]

They removed some of the flashing lights in the final game compared to the demo.

[@charoleawood]

@@green929392 True. And what a shame!

[@AD3SPG]

35 doing my first playthrough a few parts of the game scared me even at this age.

[@isaaciktaile1118]

I want more KZbinrs do adopt your kind of intros. Doesn't get in the way of the video but clearly establishes your mark.

[@btarg1]

If only modern programmers could optimise like Devs did in the early 2000s

[@mdubmachine]

Panic Button seems to be filling that role, given their work with porting the modern Dooms to Switch (among other games).

[@justinandout]

Well, I wouldn't blame programmers, nowadays they're outnumbered by the number of managers and PR representatives and what not, who decide what to do and how.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Since Unity/Unreal took over? Most of them don't know how.

[@gamble777888]

Not a lot of incentive to do so. Most PC gamers already own overpowered machines, it's almost like the incentive is inverted. Devs have to add ray tracing and other effects to bottleneck mid level systems and justify their AAA status.

[@kenrickkahn]

It's puzzling too.. I see games like Doom 3 running on the OG Xbox and games like Street Fighters Alpha 2 running on the Super Nintendo and I question.. What the hell happened to today's developers not trying hard to make sure all their games run correctly and smoothly on a system?? Even if they had to cut corners to make sure it fits and run smoothly you are still getting the experience the developers were targeting for.. Like someone said up top yeah developers need time to code and program and yes studios at most most times rush their developers rushing the games out the door in a broken mess..

[@stargazersmusic1505]

Hey MVG! Just wanted to say thanks for the consistent high quality content. Your videos are my weekly comfort watch, and we all look forward to them here in the house! Thanks for all that you do.

[@MrBowmanMakes]

loving these indepth looks at older game development challenges!! Great job!

[@elmzsni]

I love the 'impossible port' series... these videos are so awesomely informative, with just the right amount of nuance to keep us hyper nerds interested in the details. Great job, my friend!

[@6Stevo]

This game really was a technical masterpiece on the xbox. I remember being completely blown away by it. It felt next gen and like it shouldn't even be possible on the current gen at the time.

[@TheMadAfrican1]

Yes, it is an INCREDIBLE port. And I still play it to this day cause I love it so much.

[@doomslayer_spyrofan3943]

Its nice to see doom 3 getting mentioned considering its really underrated and i liked playing it on my switch😊

[@emilianotechs]

There's often very technical sections of your video that I don't understand most of but I still appreciate it so much thank you!

[@SINfromPL]

It's also running standalone on Quest VR. Really kicks ass in VR.

[@RitaMaSTeR]

And PSVR 1 too on ps4 slim

[@johnnyhun1]

that one is not the OG Doom, I guess thats the BFG edition. Is there a flashight on your weapon, or you have to switch between the flashlight in your hand and the weapon in your hand?

[@PineappleForFun]

​​​@@johnnyhun1e Doom3Quest page specifically says you have to use the original doom3 game data and can't use the BFG edition, which is pretty common for source ports.

[@johnnyhun1]

@@PineappleForFun yes but it also directs you to Steam link for doom3 but I don't think that's the original doom3. Since the BFG edition got released to the consoles like 10 years ago that version was brought to the digital distribution sites as well. I have Doom3 on steam but I can't check now if it's the original or not

[@PineappleForFun]

​​​@@johnnyhun1the steam edition of Doom 3 is called Doom 3:BFG Edition. I have both in my library. They come from buying the same package. You get an entry for the original and for BFG edition.

[@illyay1337]

That's impressive. I always thought it was weird how Doom 3 did skinning on CPU not GPU but assumed it was partly due to it being such an early game that they either didn't think to do that or had some tech limitations. They probably could've had more enemies on screen at once on tech at the time instead of playing whack a mole with the shotgun and imps teleporting in 1 by 1. It's still insanely impressive what doom 3 accomplished. It's like one moment all games were using the fixed function pipeline, and suddenly they were using per pixel shaders, and doom 3 and halflife 2 were the driving forces behind that.

[@kennypowerz]

I remember working at the Best Buy PC Department at the time during high school when this came out. Suddenly GPUs from the likes of BFG technologies started advertising with stickers on the box that it could run Doom 3. It was at that moment I realized that the game was something intensive on the PC side of things. It was almost as if the PC master race had ascended to new graphical heights.

[@ClaymoreClay101]

Outstanding video! Its really mind boggling some of the optimizations video game developers pulled off back in the day, not just for ports but for games in general. What's even more impressive are some of the incredible ports pulled off sometimes were done with a small team and budget and as an after though in the game's lifecycle.

[@David-ln8qh]

I always wanted my own gaming pc growing up ('08 was my first build) and the og XBOX was an exciting way to dip my toe into that space. It was how I first played Morrowind, KotOR, Half-Life 2, and Doom 3.

[@franr5371]

Really glad to see this video! I recently played Doom 3 for the first time by playing the port by "Team Beef" on the Quest 2. It was a very cool, yet somewhat janky experience that I appreciate having. Knowing that Doom 3 on Xbox had co-op makes me pine for the possibility of co-op being implemented in its Quest 2 VR port, but I won't hold my breath. :p Learning about how the team managed to port the game to hardware that didn't meet the minimum specs of its PC version was really cool. Thank you so much for the video!

[@joesaiditstrue]

I remember when the E3 Doom3 demo leaked, people were buying new graphics cards just so they could run the leaked demo. Very demanding game, I believe the best GPU at the time was the Radeon 9700 Pro

[@AaronHendu]

Nvidia basically based an entire generation of geforce cards as being best way to play Doom 3 and it worked. Cannot recall what series, but i think geforce 6600 and higher, right around same time we started seeing first PCIe GPU alongside AGP.

[@joesaiditstrue]

@@AaronHendu yup, the infamous GeForce FX series (this what you're referring to?)

[@Azuris190]

When it came out there was no GPU aviable that could run it on the highest Settings, as it demanded 512 MB Ram. I had a X800 Pro with 256 MB and yes, i bought a PC for that Game haha.

[@joesaiditstrue]

@@Azuris190 Doom 3 Alpha leaked in Nov 2002, Radeon 9700 Pro released in August. It definitely could run the leaked demo at 640x480

[@Babbages]

and i was running it on a 1ghz p3 368mb pc133 ram and a pci 128mb fx 5200 in one of them hps with the disk holder on top on lowest settings at like 12 to 20 fps and was happy it was even playable rofl

[@cinfulsinamon]

Doom 3 was my first Doom game, back on a spare computer in my dad's workplace he brought me and my brother to. I was hooked instantly, and we ended up getting the BFG edition of Doom 3 on our OG Xbox. Young me never even noticed the differences, it was spectacular on both platforms and led into us running the original games co-op in house later. Really cool to see how they accomplished getting the game running on Xbox despite technical limits, really an accomplishment for those devs

[@philtkaswahl2124]

This kind of tenacious creativity and cleverness of the porting and modding community, official and otherwise, never ceases to amaze me.

[@iancoop4537]

Such an awesome video - I experienced this game for the first time back on my original Xbox (along with Half Life 2) and years later I still go back to these games from time to time and they have aged pretty well I'd say.

[@YTP2go]

The ram allocation for the maps explains why the beginning where you go between the buildings to find the scientist is chopped out of the game and you just find him in a room.

[@Vatolicious]

These impossible port videos are my favorite of yours. So interesting

[@jimmyv3170]

This game and Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay still look amazing to this day.

[@penguinjay]

Beyond the technical side, they put the flashlight on it's own button to toggle instead of treating it as a weapon/unarmed state. That was a mega gripe on PC when it launched. So they solved that. Very NICE!

[@headninjadog8120]

Thanks for bringing us great stories from this era of gaming! I still own print gaming magazines from 02’ to 06’. Have some Doom 3 articles in there, I’m sure.

[@ezg8448]

Love videos like this, you need to create a series just for hard or impossible ports done through the years.

[@emotionz3]

Anybody who could play this game 60% of the way through in one sitting is a legend. Granted that's only 6-7 hours of gaming but it was a pretty intense game.

[@blaketindle4703]

My Mom bought me the Collector’s Edition on launch day! Steel book case and came with Doom and Doom II plus a lot of other bonus content! One of my favorite Xbox games! An amazing port!

[@GarnitrexGaming]

The more I learn of doom and the genius that is John Carmack’s programming. The more obvious that his coding skills and products are very foundational and can be tweaked, experimented, and changed thru many different techniques and methods

[@davestohs]

I am currently finishing the Xbox One version of Doom 3 on my Series X, and have been taken back by how different this game is versus other FPS games I have played over time. It really is like playing a role in a slasher movie! When I saw that there was an OG Xbox port, I couldn’t believe it. Thank you for keeping the technical details in this video and explaining the differences and obstacles that VV had to work around. If you haven’t played this game before, please try it! There is a lot of hate online based on gunplay, lighting, etc but it truly is worth your time and an excellent work of art.

[@Mankey619]

Doom 3 is indeed one of the most unique FPS games ever made by ID Software, and looking at their old graphic engine is just so rare to watch these days. 19 years and the game still looks amazing.

[@Atixtasy]

for its day, sure! But nowadays....not a chance.

[@kirillholt2329]

@@Atixtasy it looks even better now, modern graphics is dogwaste because new graphics used to facilitate new art-styles and ideas and not clutter your screen like now

[@mattrobinson5099]

I played Doom 3 for the first time around 2018. It didn't even feel old. Super fun, atmospheric, and good looking game.

[@segue2ant395]

This is one of those videos I never realised I was waiting for

[@powerbelly211]

This was the game that got me back into gaming as an adult. It was the first time I really remember paying attention to the story in game. Reading all the pda’s and everything. Great game.

[@rudyduplooy217]

This was the first game I played on its hardest difficulty. On the FINAL level this “Disk Error” pops up. In utter disbelief and fury I immediately returned the game and have since NEVER played another Doom game on principal. Only to learn right now on 17 July 2023 that all it needed was a reboot to clear the memory. No words. No words.

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

...ouch man, i'm sorry

[@saschaberger3212]

I remember playing Doom 3 a few months before release due to a leaked build. Just upgraded my PC. The game blew my mind. Thanks for the memories

[@esotericmissionary]

Another great video, MVG! And speaking of the OG Xbox, do you think you'll ever take a look at the highly underrated _Deus Ex: Invisible War,_ as well as _Thief: Deadly Shadows?_ Both game featured dynamic lighting that (I feel) match or at least compete with Doom 3, while being a completely different gaming experience. Plus, both games also use _Thief's_ original sound driver, which has still never been bested by any other video game.

[@suighrafa]

That piece of video game history is amazing and so important. Great job, dude. Your channel is great for education and entertainment. Sometimes video game industry is all about marketing, it's great to know what happens behind this.

[@SDK2K9]

This was how I experienced Doom 3 for the first time.

[@MetalArcade]

That's actually hilarious and genius for them to throw up the dirty disk error. Reminds me of Todd Howard saying that I believe in Oblivion sometimes the game would completely reboot your console and hide it behind a loading screen to clear out the memory.

[@drunkonsuccess779]

Ports that will forever impress me are Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 to the original xbox.

[@AaronHendu]

Left 4 Dead on 360.

[@drunkonsuccess779]

@@AaronHendu The Xbox 360 meets and even exceeds the minimum requirements of Left 4 Dead (aside from ram) so it's not too impressive, Left 4 Dead 2 on the other hand, that does impress me. GTA V on the 360 also still impresses me, did you see how scuffed the beta builds were for the game? If I recall they were maxing like 3fps.

[@MarioGoatse]

7:37 I had totally forgotten just how beautiful the Xbox could look! Especially in that gorgeous transparent casing!

[@EtaYorius]

By far my favorite Doom. I know a lot of the community shits on this game, because it's slower and "too horror". But i love horror games and fits Doom perfectly because you know... demons.

[@Argedis]

Yes they nailed the horror aspect with this game. Basically Dead Space before Dead Space

[@alexfizz7402]

I played Doom 3 and the expansion on my Switch like half a year ago. What an amazing game, it still looks superb to this day. I still have my copy of Doom 3 for PC in excellent condition. With the 3 CDs and the manual very well preserved.

[@robertmcknightmusic]

Doom 3 seems to be getting more love today than when it released. I remember people being unenthused by Doom 3.

[@Wobbothe3rd]

Social media commmetary =/= what most people actually think. True then, true today.

[@sirdan357]

Yep. A lot of people were saying it was a disappointment and all it had going for it was the graphics (I don't agree). Didn't help that Half-Life 2 completely overshadowed it later in the year either.

[@robertmcknightmusic]

@@sirdan357 Not to mention Halo 2, as well.

[@SpeedyGoneFroglegs]

People were just mad it was stomping on their old GPUs. Which is a fair complaint in itself if we're being honest, not being able to run a game you wanted to play would suck, but you know epeens. Nobody ever wants to admit their high end hardware ain't high end anymore.

[@Argedis]

I loved that they made it into a horror game. Dead Space probably got the inspiration from this game

[@Ray-wj4rk]

The developers used the “Apollo Thirteen” approach to get the game running! 😄 9:28 That’s awesome!

[@sirdan357]

Impressive that they got it running for sure, and it actually isn't an embarrassment compared to the PC version. Most of these "impossible ports" are impressive engineering but usually a last resort way to play the game. I didn't have a PC good enough to run Doom 3 back then. Luckily I had a family friend that was a computer geek who had a secondary system that he lent me that ran the game semi-decently at reduced settings. I would have just waited for the Xbox version if I had known about it.

[@Oniontrololol]

Love these impossible port videos! Keep them coming!

[@mistamaog]

I love hearing about impossible ports. I always felt like Battlefield 3 being put on consoles was an impossible port.

[@mdihero]

you are correct, it was impossible lol it barely worked

[@teacherfromthejungles6671]

it was more like a lazy ass port for outdated hardware no one cared for

[@mistamaog]

@@teacherfromthejungles6671 outdated hardware, yes, but it had millions of players on it

[@jc_dogen]

@@teacherfromthejungles6671 those ports took a ton of work, including lots of ps3 cell specific optimizations

[@CAPCOM784]

I'm sure if could run Doom on Switch then with the right gaming developer could get Battlefield 3 working like it should on consoles back then.

[@unkles]

One thing I appreciate about Doom 3 OG Xbox is when listening to your PDA , the background game was muted so I could hear the voices and videos clearly. Was actually my first experience with Doom 3 because alot of us couldn't afford a gaming PC. So i was kinda let down when I played the PC version finally to find out that it never had had that kind of audio setup. I have a flaw in me where I cant concentrate on reading or listening to the guides ingame when there's something like that interfering.

[@Domanator316]

Cool side note since Doom 3 Collector's edition came with Doom 1 & 2, there's 1 secret level in both games not found in other version.

[@RokushoHasashi]

You mean Doom 3: BFG Edition?

[@Domanator316]

@@RokushoHasashi No, OG Xbox Doom 3 Collectors Edition (Steel Book) Ultimate Doom & Doom 2 are in the extra menu. There’s a Unique Secret Exit in E1M1 in Doom 1 and another in E1M2 in Doom 2.

[@StrawHatTony420]

​@@Domanator316are they just secret exits or are there exclusive levels too

[@Domanator316]

@@StrawHatTony420 Yes, the secret exits are different from standard Doom 1 & 2 WADs each lead to unique levels too in that version of Doom 3 I could say where they are but that would spoil the hunt if someone wants to find them. 😁

[@tubinonyou]

Insignia is fantastic. Thanks for turning me on to the service in that first video you did. Super cool.

[@randallbro6749]

Doom 3 looks like a launch 360 game honestly it looks like Prey if anyone remembers that one

[@johnclark9719]

It's has the same game engine as the og prey love that game to this day.

[@kevboard]

same engine, and it was in development for ages (it was originally announced for N64 and PC) so they did naturally look very comparable yeah. but Prey does have way more detail and bigger maps. if you compare them side by side, Prey does look noticeably better, but Doom 3, along with Splinter Cell 3 and Riddick, really looks like an in-between step, between Gen6 and Gen7.

[@AaronHendu]

Prey was awesome, too. Had a collectors version with metal tin and pewter figure and some other stuff for PC. How can anyone forget that opening scene in the bar...

[@AaronHendu]

​@@kevboardriddick...one of my top Xbox games...maybe 2nd fav next to Ninja Gaiden.

[@johnclark9719]

@@AaronHendu I still have my og copy for the PC play it at least once a year in fact I No CD cracked about five years ago and it been on one of my hard drives since then and yes when Don't Fear The Reaper kicks you know you are in for a good time.

[@Doommarine23]

Awesome video, information dense while being concise and engaging. One of my favorite games and I am so happy to learn more about it, thanks for all the great info as always MVG.

[@joncarter3761]

I still remember buying a Geforce 4 Ti so I could play Silent Hill 3 and Doom 3! I was running an AMD 3000+ at the time after convincing my parents I 'needed' a powerful PC for my computer science, electronics and photography A levels :P To be fair though having a powerful CPU did make digitally editing my photos in paintshop pro/photoshop and scanning negatives into the PC a lot faster so it wasn't a complete lie lmao

[@wing0zero]

Man that must have still run like crap for D3, I bought a Nvidia 6800GT to play it and it was still a struggle.

[@joesaiditstrue]

GeForce 4 wasn't a good choice for this game, I had a Ti4600 and it wasn't a great experience. I upgraded to a Radeon 9800 non pro flashed to a pro and it kicked ass

[@wing0zero]

@@joesaiditstrue I had a similar thing before my 6800GT, I had a ATI MSI 9800 Pro and flashed it to become the XT version, ATI were good for that kind of thing back then.

[@wing0zero]

@proudofyourroots9575 Yeah I always have a top GPU as I'm a bit of a graphics whore but yeah D3 could run one some questionable hardware when all low, that's Carmack for you though.

[@boydpukalo8980]

Another great video. I always learn something and enjoy your insights into the history and technical details behind these accomplishments.

[@poncho828]

Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 had impressive Xbox ports.

[@berka05]

Thief deadly shadows is amazing as well

[@Tattootin]

Jedi night 2 clip looked EXACTLY like the hall clip you showed right before hahaha! That’s hysterical

[@kristenhawkins5453]

Who ever is reading this... have a great day! 🍒😃

[@TheNummer47]

Thankmyou!

[@8KilgoreTrout4]

Stood in line until opening to get a launch copy of Doom 3 on PC, and it even came with a 5.1 Surround Sound Card.. However, when I went to check out, I was a few bucks short and then this HERO that was waiting in line with me overheard and paid the difference! Whoever you are sir, thank you again!

[@untetheredmoon6971]

This video was randomly recommended to me. I love doom and watched the whole thing. Super well done video and very informative! subbed.

[@axk637]

Nice Video ! I loved this game ! Was the first game I played with my 5.1 sound system , the sound was awesome. I was really scared so often... I just played the BFG edition on my xbox 360 , also a good port with some nice improvements .

[@D33PLOV3]

Doom 3 on OG Xbox played on an iart JVC CRT in a dark room is something I do once a year. FUN GAME!

[@simplybelter]

Played through this version and it was mind-blowing at the time for sure. Impressive work!

[@thatzaliasguy]

On a side note: The best way to play DOOM 3 today on PC, is via the open-source port *dhewm3* (or *RBDoom3BFG* if you want to play the terrible and inferior BFG edition). This gets the game running in Vulkan for modern hardware, and supports both higher resolutions/higher refresh rates, and mods. Online Deathmatch (and the Coop mod) is also fully available.

[@headman82]

Vicarious vision did an unbelievable job porting this and I wouldn’t be a Doom fan without it